Dynamic Role of Green Energy Efficiency and Climate Technologies in Realizing Environmental Sustainability: Fresh Insights From China

Abstract

Amid rising industrialization and economic progress, China has shown exponential growth in energy and fossil fuel consumption; therefore, it faces great global concern and widespread criticism for energy and fuel conservation to reduce fuel-related emissions. In addition, the recent spread of COVID-19 instigates the impact of environmental pollution, exaggerates the virus intensity, and lowers people’s immunity due to poor air quality. Therefore, this study explored the role of green energy efficiency and climate technologies in achieving carbon neutrality in China using an advanced quantile autoregressive distributed lag (QARDL) framework. The results indicated that green energy efficiency and climate technologies significantly reduce environmental pollution across all quantiles in the long run. In contrast, urbanization enhances environmental degradation at lower and higher emissions quantiles, while trade only promotes environmental pollution at lower quantiles. These findings suggested using alternative energy sources and carbon-reducing technologies to ensure a sustainable environment.